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<!– google_ad_section_start –> JACKSON, Ga. (AP) — Georgia postponed its first execution of a woman in 70 years late Monday because of concerns approximately the drug to be used in the lethal injection.<!– –>The pentobarbital was sent to an independent lab to check its potency & the test came back at an acceptable level, yet during subsequent checks it appeared cloudy, Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said. Corrections officials called the pharmacist & decided to postpone the execution “out of an abundance of caution,” she said. No new date was given.Pentobarbital is the only drug used in Georgia executions. For other recent executions, the state has gotten the drug from a compounding pharmacy, yet officials did not immediately respond late Monday when asked if that was the source in this case. Georgia law prohibits the release of any identifying information approximately the source of execution drugs or any entity involved in an execution.Kelly Renee Gissendaner was scheduled to be executed at 7 p.m. at the prison in Jackson for the February 1997 slaying of her husband, Douglas Gissendaner. The execution was put on hold while officials waited for the U.S. Supreme Court to either grant or deny a stay requested by her lawyers. The court had still not ruled more than five hours later.Her lawyers were seeking a delay pending a U.S. …

<!– google_ad_section_start –> ATLANTA (Reuters) – Georgia halted the planned Monday execution of the only woman on death row in the state due to problems with the drugs to be used in the lethal injection, officials said. <!– –> Kelly Renee Gissendaner, 46, condemned for the murder of her husband in 1997, would have been the first woman executed by the state in 70 years. “Within the hours leading up to the scheduled execution, the Execution Team performed the necessary checks. At that time, the drugs appeared cloudy,” Georgia Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gwendolyn Hogan said in a statement. “The Department of Corrections immediately consulted with a pharmacist, & in an abundance of caution, Inmate Gissendaner’s execution has been postponed,” Hogan said. It was not immediately clear to when the execution would be rescheduled. Prosecutors said Gissendaner plotted with her boyfriend, Gregory Owen, to kill her husband, Douglas Gissendaner, who was stabbed to death in a desolate area in suburban Atlanta after being abducted from his home. Owen confessed to carrying out the Feb. 7, 1997, murder & implicated Kelly Gissendaner. He is serving a life sentence. …

Knoxville, Tenn.–(UTSports) James Michael “Mike” Rollo, who spent 25 years as an athletic trainer at the University of Tennessee & more than 30 years with the athletics department passed away on Friday, February 27 at the age of 59. Rollo, a 1977 graduate of UT, joined the training staff full-time in 1978 under the direction of legendary trainer Tim Kerin, for whom the training room at Tennessee is named. Rollo took over the department as head trainer following Kerin’s sudden passing in 1992. He was promoted to Assistant Athletics Director for Sports Medicine in 2001. “Mike was a tremendous friend,” former Tennessee head coach Phillip Fulmer said. “He absolutely loved the University of Tennessee, which was exemplified in his loyalty for all those years. He was a very significant part of our success at Tennessee.” In his 10 seasons as the primary trainer for football, the Volunteers were 100-23, with a pair of SEC championships & the 1998 BCS National Championship. “I am saddened to hear of the passing of Mike Rollo,” said former Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning. “Mike always gave his all for Tennessee, & I was fortunate to have a strong friendship with him. I had complete trust in Mike, & he always took tremendous care of our team during my time in Knoxville. …

Teenagers in North Carolina were easily able to buy electronic cigarettes online because both Internet vendors & shipping companies failed to verifying ages in a study that assessed compliance with North Carolina’s 2013 e-cigarette age-verification law, according to an article published online by JAMA Pediatrics. While analysts have forecasted e-cigarette sales could hit $10 billion by 2017, the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has reported increasing e-cigarette use by teenagers. While 41 states currently ban e-cigarette sales to minors, compliance with these state laws has not been assessed. Rebecca S. Williams, M.H.S., Ph.D., of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, & coauthors assessed compliance with North Carolina’s 2013 law. The authors enlisted 11 nonsmoking minors between the ages of 14 & 17 to make supervised e-cigarette purchases from 98 Internet e-cigarette vendors. The minors successfully placed 75 orders. Of 23 unsuccessful orders, only five were rejected for age verification, which means 93.7 percent of e-cigarette vendors failed to properly verify their customers’ ages, according to the study results. The delivered packages of e-cigarettes moreover came from shipping companies that, according to company policy or federal regulation, do not ship cigarettes to consumers. None of the vendors complied with North Carolina’s e-cigarette age-verification law. …